


Old Oak Doors (Tell Me Why)

by Khetienn



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Drabble, Get a box of tissues, I Don't Even Know, I mean it, Imprinting, M/M, Please Don't Kill Me, Scarily canon-plausible, Twisted relationships, What Have I Done, dark!Carlos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-08
Updated: 2014-10-08
Packaged: 2018-02-20 08:50:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2422616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khetienn/pseuds/Khetienn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"... And I fell in love instantly."  A slightly darker look at Cecil's infatuation with Carlos.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old Oak Doors (Tell Me Why)

Carlos looks out over the vast expanse of endless desert, and reflects that he never meant it to go this far, not really. He bites his lip, worrying at the soft skin, relishing the pain because it distracts him from the other, sharper pain he is currently experiencing. He looks back at the door behind him, still open a crack, and then forward again, at the encroaching, blinding, burning light. 

Can he do this? Does he have the strength?

How much does he love Cecil? Can he do this, for Cecil? Can he do this, _to_ Cecil?

Does he love Cecil enough to let him go?

* * * 

Carlos didn't know that Cecil existed, didn't even know that the Voice of Night Vale was a thing until one of his interns (Alex? Adam? Either way, the kid would be dead in three weeks and he would feel a vague twinge of regret for the resentment at the younger man's teasing) sauntered past and sniggered, “ _Hola_ , Carlos. Nice _hair_.” 

This seemed to be some sort of random, inside joke among his teammates, and it took several days before he could convince them to let him in on it. When they finally caved, his first reaction was confusion, then disbelief, then anger, and finally, a bewildered sort of amusement. His next was to go and get a long overdue haircut.

It stopped being funny when the Voice of Night Vale ran the barber out of town.

* * *

It was Old Woman Josie, out near the car lot, who finally explained it to him. He was there to meet her friends, Erika, Erika, Erika, and Erika, who do not exist, in much the same way that the house in the Desert Creek housing development exists. In between Carlos snapping frantic photos, scribbling feverish notes, and gibbering desperately, she explained that Cecil has imprinted on him.

“Like a baby duckling, you know?”

Carlos began to explain to her that the term “baby duckling” is redundant, as the word “duckling” already implies a baby duck and therefore the qualifier “baby” is unnecessary, when what she had just said finally registered.

“Wait. What?”

She fixed her steely, no-nonsense glare on him and repeated it again. Slowly. As though he were a third grader. When she was done, he was silent for a moment, then sounds began to escape him that sounded very much like renewed gibbering.

One of the Erikas sighed. “We're _never_ going to get enough pictures for our modeling portfolio, at this rate.”

* * *

It was just more Night Vale weirdness, Carlos reasoned. He was here as an outside observer, anyway. Best not to get tangled in such things. If he ignored it, surely it would... fade? go away? 

Cecil continued to coo over his various perfectly perfect attributes over the radio. Carlos gritted his teeth and tried to ignore it when the team turned the volume up, very unprofessional giggling coming from their corner of the room. There were a few unavoidable times when he had to call into the radio station for some kind of uniquely Night Valian crisis, but he was always sure to cut Cecil's delighted squeal of “Carlos!!!” (there were at _least_ three exclamation marks in there, he could _hear_ them) short with a brusque reminder that he was not, absolutely _not_ , calling for personal reasons.

Funny, but almost dying to a barrage of javelins the size of your little finger underneath Lane 5 of a bowling alley and arcade fun center rearranged your priorities.

He emerged into the hot desert night, shaken, shaking, and fumbled for his phone, paging through his contacts. Then he stopped. He honestly could not think of a single person to call, not anyone he could trust right now to just _be_ there while he took stock of the renewed sense of his own mortality. Who could he trust, unconditionally?

Carlos stared down into the softly glowing screen of his phone. Almost of his own will, his finger stabbed the colorful bar labeled _'Cecil'_. 

* * *

At first he wrote it off as a one-off, a fluke. He'd almost _died_ , for god's sake, a man had died for him. It was only natural that he would reach out to someone, anyone, for simple human comfort, for the reassuring warmth of another person to remind him that all was not wrong with the world. 

Almost without realizing it, he started tuning in to Cecil's show more often. The other man's admiration of him seemed undimmed by Carlos' moment of emotional weakness in the parking lot of the Arby's. He continued to gush things like, “perfect Carlos, lovely Carlos,” and slowly Carlos grew to accept that voice on the radio as part of him, began to _believe_ in Cecil the way Cecil believed in him.

He kept telling himself it was just a friendly interest, they were friends now after all, it wasn't, couldn't be anything more, he wasn't even _gay_ , for crying out loud, right up until he said into the phone, “I'm calling for personal reasons.”

* * *

For a while, things were... well, perfect. Cecil adored him, nearly worshiped him, and it was intoxicating. Even the negative things Cecil had to say about him were always quickly qualified with a declaration of love, or a reiteration of his perfection. Cecil was only too happy to have Carlos study him as well, seeing how this “imprinting” worked and what it was. Each brain scan and series of questions only seemed to make him happier that he was being useful with Carlos' “important science work.”

The sex was intoxicating. They would have marathon bouts of it, Cecil so eager to please, going at it all night and day with only short catnaps in between until Carlos regretfully sent Cecil off to work, disheveled and with dark circles under his eyes.

It was during one of these short breaks, when Carlos was stumbling to the bathroom, that one of his coworkers confronted him. He blinked owlishly at her, having lost track of time. Was it really evening already, had the others begun moving upstairs to their rooms from the lab? 

She jabbed a finger painfully into his chest and he gaped at her, because it really hurt. “This is disgusting, Carlos,” she hissed at him. “It's got to stop.”

He drew himself up, ready to deliver a bleary but impassioned lecture on the evils of homophobia and the fact that coworkers should mind their own business, but she cut him off.

“You're _taking advantage_ of him,” she bit out. Carlos could only blink once more. “I've seen your results,” she continued. “You left them lying out, so don't even go on about me snooping into your stuff. He's _imprinted_ , Carlos. He can't help but love you, he doesn't have a _choice_ , it's almost like you're God to him. And you're using him to feel better about yourself.” She was nearly snarling at this point. “If I were you, I would consult your _scientific ethics_ and your _goddamn sense of human decency_ , wherever that is, and take a long, hard look at your behavior lately.”

She stalked off like an angry cat; if she'd had a tail, it would have been lashing behind her. In her wake, Carlos sank slowly down the wall until he was in a sitting position. All the little things he'd been trying to deny to himself over the past few months came to him in a rush. Cecil's overeagerness to please, how he never had a bad word to say about Carlos, _ever_ , how he never seemed to want a single thing for himself. The way he would always immediately agree with Carlos' opinions, even if just a moment before he had been expressing a preference for the opposite. 

He'd known for a while that something was wrong. He just hadn't wanted to admit it. Alice was right, though. It had to stop. Cecil deserved to be his own person. He would go back in there, and tell Cecil they needed a break. Maybe Old Woman Josie would know a way to-

His thoughts were cut off as Cecil stuck an adorably tousled head out the door. “Carlos,” he pouted, “come back to bed.”

Carlos wavered. But Cecil just looked so... so... _needy_. Slowly, he rose to his feet. 

He promised himself that he would go to see Old Woman Josie tomorrow.

* * * 

Tomorrow came and went, and the next day, and the next. He kept finding excuses not to go. It was surprisingly easy. He bought Cecil and himself a place of their own, as much to keep away from the piercing looks of Alice and the others as to see Cecil's face light up with joy. It was good, for once, to see him smile at something that Carlos had done, rather than at something he had done to make Carlos happy. Even in bed, now, he wasn't satisfied to let Carlos kiss and touch and explore, insisting on doing all the work. Cecil flashed him that adoring grin as they began moving day, hauling boxes with a will. 

A happy hum emanated from him as he set to unpacking, and began hanging the curtains he'd just pulled out of a box. Carlos glanced over, and winced slightly. They were the purple curtains from Cecil's old living room; his apartment had been decorated in bright colors, texture everywhere, a perfect reflection of his personality. Carlos' own taste ran to clean, minimalistic lines, and he'd always felt rather suffocated in Cecil's over-cozy, nest-like apartment. 

“Those are a little garish, don't you think?” he said before he was aware he was going to say anything.

Cecil looked down at the fabric in his hands, running his fingers over it almost lovingly as he gazed at it. “Oh... of course, you're right, my Carlos. We should go shopping for new ones tomorrow.” 

The worst part was, he didn't even sound sad or disappointed, there was no break in his voice. Only obedient agreement and an eager desire to please.

Carlos excused himself to the bathroom and sat on the closed lid of the toilet. He sank his head into his hands, and shook for five minutes.

* * *

By the time he gathered up the courage to finally go talk to Old Woman Josie, it was too late. The yellow helicopters had come and gone, and there was nothing left for him to ask advice of. Even the Erikas had gone. He almost broke it off with Cecil half a dozen times, even managed to stay away for a few days, but the hurt in his boyfriend's lovely eyes and his own almost overwhelming addiction to the kind of worship Cecil offered him proved too much to resist.

He always came back. And he hated himself for it.

The Cecil he had known, had eventually fallen in love with, was fading. While he had been resisting it Cecil had at least been his own person, even if he was hopelessly in love. Once Carlos had given in, had selfishly begun to treat all that adoration as though it were something he was allowed, something he _deserved_ , things began to change. Bits of Cecil began eroding, softly, almost unnoticeably. Things Carlos didn't particularly like, such as his habit of singing in the shower too early in the morning, his bizarre preference for cucumber mint lattes, and now even his decorating sense, quietly vanished. He agreed with Carlos more readily, stopped going to Old Woman Josie's bowling league since it meant he would have to spend less time with Carlos, rhapsodized about him on air to the point where even his faults seemed like glowingly positive attributes when filtered through the lens of one of Cecil's masterful soliloquies.

 _It's got to stop,_ Carlos thought, echoing Alice's verbal slap to the face, but he no longer knew how to stop it.

* * *

The doors appeared suddenly, all over Night Vale, and Carlos is the first to volunteer to step through the door of the house that doesn't exist. He reassures a panicky Cecil that he'll be fine, really, and doesn't voice the thought that maybe Cecil will be better off if he doesn't come back. 

The wretched, tearing, dissolving light occupies all his attention for a while, until the idea comes to him in one of his flashes of scientific brilliance, an intuitive spark of genius that strikes once in a blue moon or when he is very, very lucky.

If he is very, very lucky, he will manage to save Night Vale, Cecil, and his own stained soul.

Once the first item on that list, at least, is safe, he turns his attention to the other two items. With shaking hands he dials Cecil. Disgusted with himself, he is almost relieved when the call clicks over to voicemail. At least this way, maybe it will be easier. Maybe if he doesn't have to hear Cecil's shocked, horrified reaction, he can stay calmer. 

Maybe it will be harder for his boyfriend to hear the lie in his voice when he says he cannot come back.

* * *

Call complete, Carlos takes a deep, fortifying breath of the hot, dry desert air. He looks out once more over the landscape, the new world he has to explore, and drops his phone to the sand. That'll be it, then. He has counted; there should be one more door left, one more way home to Night Vale, but he will not look for it. He will not step through it. Cecil knows he's not coming home, or will, shortly. He'll be heartbroken, at first, but he has people to help him through it. Maybe the damage Carlos has done can be undone, and maybe Cecil still has a chance to be a whole person once more, belonging only to himself. 

Carlos raises his foot to crush the phone into shards of plastic and glass, meaningless electronic bits unable to contact anyone ever again. It's for the best, he tells himself. A clean break. Best for everyone.

He hesitates.

Best that he doesn't call again. It will only prolong the pain and quite possibly impede Cecil's recovery. Cecil's voicemail message will have to be the last time he hears that wonderful, smooth voice. It will be hard, but Carlos is strong. He knows he can do it.

With a shaking hand, he slowly picks up the undamaged phone and slips it into the pocket of his lab coat.

 

So tell me tell me was I there when I was taught how to lie?  
I thought I'd chase paradise but I'll just set off a lie  
So tell me tell me did I die when I was taught how to lie?  
Don't tell me what it'll be because it's all in degrees  
And by degrees what I mean is you don't see what I see  
So is this falling apart or are these pieces of me?  
Is this a nightmare to be or am I building a dream? 

It's funny how life can be the circles dance around me  
Drawing a reminder of what I've done and who I've become  
Sleepin' my days without dreams, Wakin' a night without sleep  
Missing the truth to lie the promises I heard I would keep  
I'm lost in my paradise, the walls have built in my life  
So tell me tell me will I die if I forget how to lie? 

\- Jakalope, Tell Me Why 

**Author's Note:**

> *backs slowly away from approaching mob* Okay, you guys, I swear this is not my normal headcanon, it's full of fluff and rainbows and happiness, okay put down the pitchforks, I will write you some fluff, will that appease you, no, I promise, what are you doing with those torches?
> 
> (Inspired by a darker interpretation of Cecil's crush on Carlos that I couldn't get out of my head and the Jakalope song quoted above. Really, listen to it, it's quite good.)


End file.
